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description

Object description

The RFC base at Sainte Marie Cappel, Western Front, late August 1917.

Full description

A Nieuport 27c Scout of 60 Fighter Squadron, badly damaged outside a hangar, with mechanics removing a damaged wing. Three men working in a mobile repair shop (see the same scene in IWM 118 THE EYES OF THE ARMY). A new wing is fitted to a FE2d of 20 Night Bomber Squadron outside a hangar. A posed group of members of 60 Squadron: left to right Frank 'Mongoose' Soden (with dog), Captain William A 'Billy' Bishop VC DSO MC, Keith 'Grid' Caldwell, E W 'Moley' Molesworth, Spencer 'Nigger' Horn. Pan over a larger group of the squadron's pilots. (Bishop left the squadron at the end of August, when it was moved from Filescamp Farm to Sainte Marie Cappel, and this may still be Filescamp.) An FE2d, serial number A6445 of 20 Squadron (indistinctly marked "Presented by the Sultan of Mysore" ?) is wheeled out of its hangar. Other FE2ds (one named "Ajmer") of the squadron are armed, bombed up with 20-pounder and 112-pounder bombs, the pilot and gunner board one plane and the flight of five takes off. A Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter of 45 Fighter Squadron is prepared for flight and the squadron takes off. The clear doped aircraft is A1083 and was usually flown by Geoffrey Cock. Just to the right can be briefly glimpsed the tail of Nieuport A6741. This aircraft was only on charge with 45 Squadron between 20 April 1917 and 6 May 1917 when it was returned to No1 Aircraft Depot, and thus dates this part of the film to that period. One 1-1/2 Strutter is shown stunt flying. Two FE2ds come in to land at Sainte Marie Cappel past a line of 1-1/2 Strutters.